Optus goes on conversion offensive by making EPL streaming available only to customers
Optus is set to try to force fans of the English Premier League to sign up for one of its mobile internet services, announcing a new suite of apps and channels to watch the matches on.
The telco surprised many in market by stealing in to take the rights to the football league from Fox Sports for around $60m per year, with many observers asking whether the telco could recoup that cost.
It appears the company is set to try to do that by forcing fans to subscribe to one of its home broadband or mobile plans in order to access the games, with anyone paying less than $85 per month for a plan being made to pay an additional $15 per month to access the games.
In a statement, Ben White, managing director of marketing and product at Optus, said: “While you’ll need to be an Optus customer to get all the EPL action, Optus research shows that close to two in three (63%) football fans who are not already Optus customers are out of contract for at least one of their fixed broadband or mobile services.
Stupidity. Here comes the backlash. When will companies realise the way to gain customers is to help them feel good, not to hold a gun at their head. Any bets on this public stance changing within a fortnight? (Better than 5000-1?)
This will backfire. Optus are holding hundreds of thousands of Australian football fans to ransom with this deal, and judging by the overwhelmingly negative feedback on football news services (The World Game, 442, etc), football fans aren’t buying it.
Piracy here we come. Just dumb Optus!
really missing a trick here.. especially given problems with there internet services. could be the beginning of the end for their revamped entertainment offering before it’s even started
the $85 a month cut off is way too steep for the mobile plan base given they only offer 2 plans above this threshold at 100 and 120 buck.
Personally I’ll stream for free and will likely leave optus too
Just wait for the backlash
It is going to cost at least $30/Month for non Optus customers, $15 for Fetch TV basic package and then another $15 for the EPL channel.
Optus are pointing a gun at their potential consumers heads. It’s straight bullsh*t.
So… I’m trying to calculate the size of the market needed to get an ROI on the $60m. Back of the envelope:
$60m in rights.
$85 minimum mobile or broadband spend x 12 months = $1020.
That’s 58,800 approx new customers and doesn’t include any venue revenue or Fetch revenue.
If 63% of Australian EPL fans are out of contract it means there need to be approx 100k fans. I guess that’s their logic? Time will tell if they can attract that many new customers.
Of course, I think it’s a horrible idea to force sports fans to be telco customers. It’s not 2005 anymore.
Until they figure out a way to deliver content into pubs & clubs this won’t work (at all). not the greatest foresight from Optus, I’m betting it is back on Foxtel by Septembet
This deal is more expensive than Foxtel – Monkey Trash Optus!!
@by numbers. Not quite. The deal is for 3 years, so $180m to be covered. But each customer usually has a contract term for 2 years, so double the ARPU. $180m / $2040 = 88,200 new customers spread over 3 years = 29,000 new customers a year.
So the cheapest option is around $55 a month am I reading that right? So that’s $5 a month more than a basic foxtel package with sport. If they were charging around the $30 a month I reckon they would attract significant interest but when you are paying more than you were with foxtel (even if it includes a phone package) I can’t see only but the most committed EPL fans going for that.
Mumbrella – Didn’t I also read somewhere that foxtel are going directly to some EPL clubs for the rights to delayed coverage games? Not sure what that would entail but say they arranged a deal with the most popular club Man Utd – I would think paying $50 a month for all the other sports and channel’s as well as watching the games an hour later would be way more appealing to supporters.
Hot Garbage Optus
Surprised at least one of their ten agencies couldn’t tell them this was a bad idea
When Telstra tried this with AFL, they were earning chump change. It wasnt until they opened it up that it paid off.
Before everyone does their nut in a fit of rage…..look at it from a business perspective. Signing EPL rights is a customer acquisition strategy for Optus, so not really shocking that you need to ink some sort of deal with them if you wanna watch EPL.
And if you do the math, you’re not worse off than you were with Foxtel.
As it stands, to access EPL (via Foxtel) you pay a minimum $50 for their sports package. And then you’re paying whatever $$ for your broadband on top. With this new deal, you’re either:
– An existing Optus customer paying more than $85 a month and get EPL free
– An existing Optus customer paying less than $85 a month and get EPL for $15/month
– Not an existing Optus costumer, who can switch to a >$85 plan and get EPL free, or for $15 a month on your existing Broadband provider
….or you can get FetchTV and get it for $15 a month?
Bottom line, people whined at Foxtel – and now they’re going to whine at Optus. EPL fans are fanatics and they’ll be willing to pay to watch.
they are negotiating with the like of utd arsenal and chelsea, but they broadcast games a day later rather than an hour. Which given epl kick off times is probably better
Hi Is It?
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
You’re possibly right with the price thing, although you get a lot more entertainment channels with Foxtel for that money and a hole host of other sport including full NRL and AFL access and Super Rugby (and Champions League etc from BeIn from next year).
Secondly, the issue is really with the approach. Yes it’s an acquisition strategy but there could have still been an option for non-Optus customers giving them a fantastic and exclusive marketing channel to play off. As it is a lot of fans won’t be able to watch it next year not because they can’t afford it, but because they simply don’t need the service, which will leave a bad taste in the mouth.
Cheers,
Alex – editor, Mumbrella
@Is it really that bad?
fetch for $15 and the another $15 for epl
thing is, it may be a customer acquisition strategy, but they have seriously over estimated the number of home viewers in my opinion.
no one game rates particularly highly and fewer people watch more than their own team especially given the kick off times. Many do use watching games a s ocial endeavor and so meet at a club to watch. Given the multitude of streaming options people can use for free, stinging existing customers was a huge mistake. The supporters group i help run is already up in arms with people already calling optus to cancel all their agreements, feeling conned that they need to pay so much to see a game. 15bucks for one league in one sport is very premium and fox just offered much better value, especially as most will not be giving up their fox subs, they don’t want to be hit with the additional cost.
I think overlooking a pay per game option (possibly extended to pre pay services) was a huge mistake. Again the sentiment from our group when we surveyed them on this was that the idea of paying per game and possibly doing this on a premium cost pre pay sim (to allow for unmetered/suffient data reqs) was very popular and would allow many many more people to subscribe rather than contracted optus customers
A wise man would offer it FOB to existing PostPaid customers and still charge a (premium) access fee for non-customers.
It’s the lack of customer-centricity and lateral thinking that seems to mark out Optus of late.
So people don’t need internet and phones? Unreal.
And it’d be naïve to think Optus aren’t working through options for non-Optus customers to access EPL, with some sort of offer and exclusivity to play off.
As has been said – the bottom line is people are going to whinge and complain and above all else. But business is business, so no doubt there’s been some sort of cost-benefit being done (both in terms of $$ and reputation) by Optus. EPL is a huge drawcard and they’d be silly not to use it to their advantage.
@namechanger
They sure do need those – the problem is most people already have them, and many don’t want to be locked into Optus for it, and will resent having to be. Foxtel basically didn’t have any competition in the pay-TV sports market here so the decision was binary, you get that service or not and get access to a lot of channels.
Now do I as a Telstra and TPG customer cancel one of those (incurring fees) to sign up for a more expensive Optus service which only gives me one sport? Doesn’t seem like a good deal to me.
Feels like you didn’t read the second parra. The point is, for every person who doesn’t think it’s a good deal, there will be some who are willing to pay / switch / have both – and Optus will be aware of that. It’s not about making popular decisions to keep internet bloggers happy.
@changed I realised that, just flagging it for others on the thread.
So taking my journalist cap off and putting my typical EPL punter’s one on (as I did for the other piece – feel free to read) I understand they need to make money. My point is it’s a short-term gain for long-term reputation loss. By closing it off to so many people who already have access is a real two fingers up to them.
Optus have taken the money, I just reckon it’s a very short-sighted end.
Cheers,
Alex – editor, Mumbrella
Ha! Fair enough mate. But since when has a Telco made strategic long-term decisions to positively influence their reputation. Do you Telco much?
Anyhoo…time will tell. Cheers
From Alex’s opinion piece “If Optus fails to retain the rights in three year’s time expect to see a lot of churn from their services after that.”
This is exactly right, and you know Foxsports will come very hard at them next time to get them back. And if Optus do end up losing the rights, the large numbers of people leaving their service could be catastrophic.
Couldn’t be happier being an optus cable broadband customer. And now I will finally be willing to pay for EPL because of a refusal to pay for Foxtel, but it will be free!
When the shoe was on the other foot, I was expected to pay $60 a month just to watch the EPL in HD as I’m not interested in any of the other Foxtel nonsense, plus my broadband at 100/month so, to all the other people complaining, maybe you can start paying what I was expected to to watch just the EPL.
Will we be able to record and watch the EPL in HD ? (I can’t seem to find a single reference to this). No offence to Optus but I dont want to go back to the bad old days od setanta watching a blurry image.
The backlash doesn’t surprise me.
But what does is the number of commenters who wrote “Optus have…” instead of “Optus has…”.
Maybe EPL secretly stands for English Punctuated Lousily.
Just another example of telcos buying rights to content that they don’t have the faintest idea how to exploit. Music and movies anyone?
Lloyd.. aren’t those grammatical rather than punctuation errors? Oh well.. nice try.
@YNWA.. SD is fine, but yeah.. setanta was something very very special in how bad it was at the start
Guilty as charged oh dear. Mea culpa.
That’s what happens when you try and force a TLA late at night.
Optus has displayed classic blinkered stupidity here.
Trying to force me to change my happily bedded-in media, or alternatively increase my existing mobile plan cost so I can ‘watch the games streamed to my mobile device…’ is holding a gun to the head of both current Optus customers, and to non-Optus customers.(don’t know what marketing genius sold that one in – apart from only having ADSL on the beaches – thank you Malcolm Turnbull – only Sportsbet or 365 junkies would actually want to do that.)
Result? No amount of plastering over in the near or distant future will convince the public that this corporation has the customer’s interests at heart. And this the era of consumer power as well. Tut tut. Nobody likes a bully.
I’m surprised at the level of angst here, and the charged language. Holding to ransom. Gun to head. Geez.
I’m a Telstra prepaid customer living in the city and would just about consider switching to Optus, then paying the extra $15 a month. A lot will depend on how they let me watch it – if I can use my laptop or tablet to watch games in bed at stupid o’clock, then maybe…
If Optus thinks they can force lovers of the world game to break existing contracts with either their Broadband or mobile provider, they better be prepared for a RIOT at every Optus store around the nation.
Wake up Optus! Listen to the customers and whilst your at it, at least get your frontline staff in the call centre to know that you even have the EPL rights, bloody hopeless!